


Things That Crowley Never Told Aziraphale

by LMT



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 12:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20874287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMT/pseuds/LMT
Summary: There are some things that Crowley has never told Aziraphale.  Like just how happy The Arrangement made him in its early years, and how much more he’d actually wanted.  Like what he and Jesus talked about on their whirlwind tour of the globe.  Like why he stopped eating hamsters in 4004 BC, even though they were delicious.





	Things That Crowley Never Told Aziraphale

**4004 BC**

He never told Aziraphale that it was a joke. Not a very _funny _joke – a nasty one. _You’re an angel,_ he’d said, syrupy sweet. _I don’t think you **can** do the wrong thing._ That was a joke. Because he knew, _really _knew, that angels _could _do the wrong thing, even without meaning to, and he knew exactly what happened when they did. But Aziraphale had taken him at face value, fluffy and guileless as one of those delicious creatures he’d been eating, the ones Adam named _hamster_, and he couldn’t find it in him to be cruel any longer.

He stopped eating hamsters after that, actually. He never told Aziraphale that either.

**3004 BC**

He never told Aziraphale how bitter their next meeting had left him. The sword had been forgiven, apparently - at least, _Aziraphale _had been forgiven for the sword. The humans, on the other hand, were about to be drowned for the uses they had made of their gifts. Drowned wholesale, even the kids, and he’d made his horror known but the angel had seemed utterly immune to it. It made him wonder briefly which of them was missing something. He’d concluded almost at once that it wasn’t _him; _he had paid dear for his understanding. Perhaps understanding was his curse now; he could understand tragedy in a way that angels never would. He felt for the humans. It was going to be a _long _eternity if things like this kept happening to them.

**33**

He never told Aziraphale exactly what he and Jesus had talked about, or how they’d changed his name, or how close he’d come, for the one and only time, to regretting his allegiances. By the time of the crucifixion, of course, his doubt had resolved itself - he stuck by his assessment of Jesus as a fine young man, but there was something drastically wrong with Up There if this was how they were going to use him. It was around that time that Crowley stopped rolling his eyes at language like _The Other Side_ and _The Opposition,_ which Beelzebub and Dagon had been pushing for since the beginning.

** 41 **

He never told Aziraphale how much he had been hating the world. _Hating _it, as he watched the humans fail and fail and still get more chances. _He’d_ never even had the one chance, not really. The game was over before anyone had even told him he was playing. He was resentful, and hateful, and miserable, and it was going to last forever.

But then his fluffy little angel had invited him for a meal, visibly and unashamedly _glad to see him_. He never told Aziraphale how much that afternoon had meant – or how disgusting he found the oysters; they looked like something blown from a sick man’s nose and tasted no better. _Delicious, _he said, and he told his handlers that he’d spent the day telling lies to an angel and they praised him for his bravery. He considered the praise more than earned, given what he’d had to eat.

** 537 **

He never told Aziraphale that he’d taken the Black Knight assignment knowing full well that Aziraphale was already a knight on the other side. He’d had a half-baked fantasy of meeting on a battlefield, knocking the angel from his horse because of _course _he would be incompetent at fighting, and then dramatically pulling his helmet off to watch relief and welcome light up his face. _Oh, it’s you – thank goodness!_ it went, in his mind. He would offer a hand to pull him up. _Well not quite, but, you’re welcome._

He’d been thwarted by Aziraphale’s (in retrospect, entirely predictable) impulse to try and have peace talks before fighting, and he never told Aziraphale about his little daydream. Or about how disappointing it was to learn that the angel wouldn’t have reacted that way anyhow.

**1601**

He never told Aziraphale how near he came to sabotaging The Arrangement the first time Aziraphale expressed concern about it. Because it was more than concern, really; the angel was _distressed_ on his behalf, worried about what would happen to him if Hell ever found them out. It warmed him so much that he was tempted to get caught on purpose, to take some gruesome punishment, just so that Aziraphale would fret and fuss over him afterwards. He was sure that whatever he suffered would be far outweighed by the deliciousness of being cared for.

What he was _not _sure of, after the disappointment he’d sustained in his knight suit, was Aziraphale himself. Maybe the angel liked him just enough to worry for him, but no more. He had jumped the gun last time; he had underestimated by several centuries the amount of time it would take for the angel to consider him an associate. For all he knew it would be yet more time until he counted as a friend.

**1793**

He never told Aziraphale what he was doing in the neighborhood of the Bastille, and Aziraphale never really asked. He assumed that meant that they were finally on the same page about each other. The way Aziraphale fed him bits of crepes off his own fork, laughing delightedly as he pretended to grumble, seemed to confirm the assumption. And Aziraphale’s farewell (_I’ll see you soon, I hope?_) made him so shy that he went to ground for half a century afterwards. He never told Aziraphale that his dreams during that nap were sweeter than the crepes had been, which was saying something.

** 1862 **

He never told Aziraphale _why_ he had demanded a weapon. It was because he’d witnessed an execution, a very long and very bad one, and he was determined not to ever find himself trapped in such helpless despair. He’d have options. He’d go down fighting, or at least go down by his own hand. It didn’t count as _suicide_ if it was just an escape from a death even worse.

Maybe if he’d explained all that Aziraphale would have heard him, and armed him, and he wouldn’t have had to learn what it was like to be afraid and defenseless and completely alone. Or maybe not; the angel’s feelings about the sword were still complicated. Even after all this time.

**1941**

He never told Aziraphale what a mess the church floor had made of him. He couldn’t quite hide the pain, but he’d made light of it, and it seemed that Aziraphale was fooled. By the time they met again it was all mostly healed up.

He never told Aziraphale about the endless minutes he had spent just outside the gate either. Standing frozen, wondering what would _happen _to him when he stepped inside, whether he was in for just a little discomfort or for utter annihilation. He never told Aziraphale that the way he was finally able to force himself to proceed was to catalog to himself, brutally, just how little he had to lose.

** 1967 **

He never told Aziraphale anything at all about the night of the Thermos. He knew it was all written on his face anyway.

* * *

The End?

Maybe the end, or I might do another set of these from Antichrist-era times. Not sure yet.

Let me know what you thought of this!


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